Samsung’s solar-powered netbook boasts 14-hour battery life

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Solar panels are still not efficient enough to produce adequate power to keep a laptop running indefinitely, but Samsung thinks they are good enough to at least help charge a netbook.

The Samsung NC215S netbook will be the first to test out this theory by embedding a large solar panel in the lid of the 10.1 inch device. Samsung claim that for every two hours you leave the NC215S in the sun (turned off), you will get one hour of battery life. When you consider there’s a standard battery and charger as well, that’s a nice freebie to have.

The spec of the netbook is very typical. Alongside the 10.1-inch display running a resolution of 1024 x 600 there’s 1GB of RAM, and a 1.66GHz N570 dual-core Atom. Open the lid and you’ll find a chiclet keyboard and a decent sized touchpad considering the overall size of the device.

The most impressive feature of this netbook has to be the battery life which Samsung claims is 14 hours. What we don’t know is whether that includes you sitting in the sun and getting a drip-feed of solar power while you surf the web or write some emails. All Samsung say is that 14 hours is based on usage in “ideal conditions”.

Samsung intends to bring the NC215S to the U.S., Russia, and Africa on July 3rd for $399. That’s quite a premium when you consider the almost equivalent Samsung NF310 offers up a higher screen resolution and 9 hour battery life for $359.

Using solar panels on a netbook is a little strange. It’s not typically a device you want to leave in the sun, but doing so will get you more free juice. I also wonder how hot that lid is going to get from having the sun beat down on it for a few hours. You can argue it will charge in normal lighting conditions, but that won’t get you the one hour battery life for every two charging.

As well as needing good light to get a charge any owner has to keep the lid spotless so as not to block the light in any way. Finger marks, scratches, or general dust build-up will all have a negative impact on the laptop’s ability to get a decent amount of free energy. You also have to wonder how quickly the panel degardes in terms of its ability to produce a consistent level of power over the coming months and years.

If the price was lower then I’d say this was worth checking out, but it carries a premium over Samsung’s other netbooks that have better features and still very good battery life. Maybe in a few months when the pricing equlizes it will be worth looking at, but for now it’s an expensive gimmick.